The Toronto Blue Jays shocked the baseball world when they hand-delivered a four year, $80 million dollar contract to the NL Cy Young runner-up, LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu.

It was about time the management team acquired a player of significance and it turns out the move will have its impact on the team in Toronto, but also an impact all over world, including specifically in South Korea.

Source: And in South Korea, where baseball is far and away the most popular sport, a grudge has been held against Canada’s only major-league team since they knocked the Texas Rangers out of the playoffs in both 2015 and 2016.

“The Rangers had Shin-Soo Choo, and when the Jays took them down in back-to-back years, Korean fans just hated the Jays for eliminating a team with a Korean player,” said Jeeho Yoo, a Seoul-based sportswriter who covers baseball in English for Yonhap News Agency.

But on Sunday night, when the team signed prized free-agent pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu, all of that changed.

“The Blue Jays are going to go from one of the most hated teams in Korea to one of the most loved ones,” Yoo said with a chuckle in a telephone interview. He has been covering Ryu since his career began in the Korean Baseball League and with the national team.

When reports surfaced that the beloved pitcher from Incheon, a large city bordering Seoul, would not return to Los Angeles after six seasons with the Dodgers and would instead sign with the Blue Jays, it started a media marathon in his homeland that’s still going.

That’s right folks, every Blue Jays game this season will be nationally televised in Korea. A huge deal for the Blue Jays and their ability to generate revenue for the baseball team, which could lead to them opening their wallets in a few years when Vladdy, Bo and Biggio are going to need extensions.

The Blue Jays have turned themselves into a mystery team this season, where if all goes well, could see them battling for the second wild-card playoff spot.

If it’s a year of disappointment, it’s going to be felt all over the world now. Let’s hope the east can help the north so the team doesn’t head south in the standings.